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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28563144">I want to let go</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuro_Ko/pseuds/Kuro_Ko'>Kuro_Ko</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mercedes has a motorbike, drummer Ingrid, this is horny and depressing, what am I supposed to write here even</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 01:28:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,941</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28563144</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuro_Ko/pseuds/Kuro_Ko</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mercedes wanders aimlessly in a city devoid of colors, in a world of white and black.</p>
<p>Until she meets Ingrid.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Mercedes von Martritz</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Mercedes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Mercedes had never known of home, yet she clung to the idea of it, reluctant to let go, scared of the possibilities of being alone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Again, alone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The air was freezing in the night, her own breathing a shade of white and grey when she exhaled. From the distance it blurred her face and distorted her features. The shade of white and grey changed under the neon lights, green and red and purple and blue.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes watched how it flowed before fizzling out into the dark sky of a city that knew nothing of rest even in the coldest days and the longest of nights. She inhaled again, the cold air hurting in its way in, reminded her she was alive and she could feel despite how numb she was most of the time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In the pocket of her jeans, too big to fit comfortably, her phone lighted to life. She knew it was Annie calling for her, asking if she was ok or on her way home already. Mercedes didn’t answer, she eyed it briefly before her eyes were back to the endless sky and the neon lights that colored Fhirdiad.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This was Emile’s favorite place in the city, amidst the bustling streets and the never-ending traffic. Mercedes shifted her seat on the motorcycle and bit her lower lip to force a smile. It was a broken smile, but it was good enough to fool the people that looked at her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>An ice cream shop they had visited enough times to learn the menu by heart and watch the big windows and know what he would have wanted for that freezing night.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If he still was around.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They had been family, and yet never had a home.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The air from her nostrils blurred her vision once more and showered her with colors she didn’t care to tell apart, her mind registering the external world and merging it with her memories, seeing there the long-gone days she had shared with her brother. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mourning in the present wasn’t to set her free from the chains of the past. Her life and her grief, however, were not to stay apart and Mercedes could only watch as the tides crashed over and over. A dance she didn’t take pleasure in.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>An ocean she could only drown in.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The helmet in her hands was black and its matte color didn’t come alive with the lights around. She looked at it and saw in her distorted reflection her tired eyes and her smile that could fool everybody but her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was tired and her world was still grey and white no matter the colors the city would light upon her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes put the helmet on and her phone in the inner pocket of her jacket.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With the visor down nobody could see her break down when she looked to her right one last time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The motorcycle was an electric blue lighting that merged into the lights of Fhirdiad, a city that despite the colors it offered, was white and grey in her mind.</span>
</p><hr/>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid’s helmet dangled from her fingers as she walked in those silent hallways and rooms. The noise from the street was muffled by the heavy glass doors and the surreal white walls made especially to highlight the works that hung on them. Even the heels of her boots, heavy and short, resonated in that place. She found it curious how despite her appearance, her hands loosely hanging by her sides and the helmet brushing against her jeans every now and then, she seemed to fit there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The black and grey of the paintings told her stories she couldn’t name with words but spoke to her nonetheless. Ingrid walked looking at the paintings, fully aware of the colorful ones, the older ones, that depicted a city so similar and different from the one she was seeing in those new pieces.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She looked at the name tags and prices. She couldn’t afford any of them, but they would live in her memory when she was just watching the bare ceiling of her small apartment. She tugged her scarf, not really needed inside the building, and kept walking in the deserted art gallery. Ingrid knew that eleven in the morning wasn’t the busiest time for an art gallery.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was the best time for her to get lost in it, before her rehearsals with the boys and her part-time job in the afternoons.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The black and white and grey seemed so sad and yet so rich. It was powerful and it was minimal.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A few traces that said so much and spoke on a level her soul understood.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes von Martritz.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Somehow, through the art she felt as she knew her. Ingrid felt as if they had already talked about what moved them and what compelled them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Preposterous, of course. Ingrid had never crossed a word with the artist, she just was a drummer in an indie rock band that barely could make ends meet at the end of each month.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wasn’t an artist, she wasn’t a friend of hers and she hadn’t ever spoken to her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Mercedes’s art had spoken to her and touched her heart when Ingrid had looked at it months ago.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her phone vibrated and she took it from her jacket absentmindedly, looking at the screen to check the time and read quickly Dimitri’s message. Ingrid looked at the painting one last time, shifting the weight of her body in each foot, before turning and securing her helmet to her head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid hopped on her bike and pedaled her way through the streets of Fhirdiad, muttering a tune to herself as she did.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The grey of Mercedes’s strokes living in her mind, appearing when she closed her eyes or after a long long day, when Ingrid was in bed in her studio-apartment, looking at the bare ceiling and seeing there memories that played without her consent.</span>
</p><hr/>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes looked at the stage and her mind just could picture the green in the drummer’s eyes. The dry ice and the neon lights managed by someone who didn’t know what they were doing didn’t distract her from the figure at the back of the stage, smiling as they followed the rhythm never failing once.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She shouldn’t be able to see it so clearly, yet she could. She followed how their drumsticks hit each drum, never stopping, how their eyebrows were raised and how they bit their lower lip as they brought the song to an end to extasis of the public in the small bar where they were playing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes shouldn’t be able to see the green in their eyes, yet she couldn’t see anything else.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Green framed by blonde and the colors of neon lights managed by someone that wasn’t an expert but tried.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Green in the small bar Annie had dragged her to watch this band she didn’t even know the name of.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I told you they were great!” Annette grabbed her by her shoulder, smiling. Mercedes smiled back, she knew Annette’s intentions were the best, she knew her friend suspected how deep her grief was, yet Mercedes kept to herself the things that haunt her when she was alone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The memories that haunt her even when she was surrounded by people yet she felt alone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The music wasn’t her favorite, the bar was closed and the atmosphere was hot and heavy, but the drummer took a long sip of water from a bottle and took off their shirt. There were muscles in their shoulders and arms.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a green that seemed to live in a different dimension and Mercedes couldn’t stop looking at it despite how far she was and how impossible it was for her to see it clearly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I guess I should listen to them, right?” She said, out of politeness mostly. Annette’s eyes shone and she tried to say something, but the words were tangled by the flow of music once more, washed away by the frenetic tide of a guitar and the drums that followed. Mercedes’s eyes were back on the stage, watching, trying to understand, trying to pick the feeling and lay it bare in front of her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her world that was white and black and grey was slowly tinted green.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wanted to understand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wanted to understand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wanted to understand and then let it go.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her heart wrenched in her chest and she put there a fist to steady herself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The world, the colors, the vision spinning around made her dizzy and a stranger in her own body, uncomfortable in her skin as if she wasn’t meant to be there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wasn’t meant to be her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes looked at the drummer, through the dry ice and the neon colorful lights and her blue eyes could pick that green apart but not quite understand how it could live in the same dimension than hers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wanted to understand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes was trying to sail in an ocean devoid of colors.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wanted to understand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And let go.</span>
</p><hr/>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid looked at the name tag, then at the painting, and the name once more.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That was her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The green in the painting was the same as in her eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It had to be her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Even the drums were hers, she could see the familiar shape of each of the drums she had collected over the years to put together her own set.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She took the name tag in her hands, examining the printed black letters and tilted her head, trying to understand how it was possible.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The drummer.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No shit, it was her, Ingrid wasn’t dreaming. She bit her lower lip and hummed to herself completely astonished.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Had Mercedes been to her shows? Ingrid tried to remember. She tried to remember closing her eyes and her shoulders dropping as her hands went to the bottom of her pockets. They threw shows every weekend at least, trying to get out there and make a name for themselves, trying to break through a ceiling that seemed so hard and heavy to lift.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid was always in the back, only the power of her music and her drums breaking through to accompany the show of lights in the front. Ingrid was always in the back and she didn’t mind because from there she could support her friends and let herself be consumed by the music with no other distractions than her running thoughts that always followed the rhythm her heart felt as she kept the tempo up.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She shifted the weight on her feet and tilted her head again, her eyes still closed, but her body moving to the music in her mind.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It could be that she had been to one of them, and it was both incredible and amusing that the artist looked up to the stage and decided to fix her creative eye on her instead of any of the boys who were a more prominent figure.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid opened her eyes and froze in time, still looking at the new painting on the wall.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes had captured the color of her eyes to the detail.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The same green scanned the traces that composed the shade of her eyes and Ingrid noticed how it was but a single trace for each iris. Mercedes hadn’t doubted when painting it, and she had been true even if she didn’t have the model to look at when she picked the color up.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid’s scarf was again in the way and she tugged it away from her neck.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How had she done that? How had that happened and how was it possible for her to be completely oblivious to it until now?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The phone in her pocket called for her to take a picture and send it to her friends, yet Ingrid didn’t know how to feel about it. She was happy, she was conflicted, she was surprised.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was hopeful she could maybe reach out to this person that had inspired her and get to know her better.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid was hopeful she could reach out to Mercedes and tap just in the artistic spring she seemed to be. Ingrid longed to understand how and why those images plagued her art and why it resonated with her so much.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Was she a creep?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid left the phone in her pocket and kept that particular finding to herself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe she was a creep.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She crossed her arms and rested all her weight in her left foot, her helmet, secured to her hip, dangled alongside her movements. Ingrid had work that day, she couldn’t stay longer looking at the paintings before clocking into work.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There were bills to pay, food to buy, clothes to wear.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was broke and she struggled to make ends meet each week, each day.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid took off her hat, exasperated, and the movement did nothing to appease her thoughts.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The green in her eyes was the same that in the painting and her heart beat faster the longer she looked at it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She mussed her hair, indecisive for a second, before putting her gray beanie back in place.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid couldn’t just go to the reception and ask for Mercedes’s number, could she? What would she say? “Hello, yes, Mercedes von Martritz painted me, can you give me her number?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh, Goddess, that sounded terrible.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She scratched the back of her neck.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid would be better off just getting out of there instead of dwelling in things she couldn’t answer to herself. She had no answers for those questions and maybe she would never have them. That was ok, she knew some questions were to be left unanswered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It usually didn’t bother her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The drummer.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid had to go or she’d be late and even if Sylvain’s father was understanding, she couldn’t afford to look bad or risk her job.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The green was the same she saw every day in her reflection.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you like it?” Ingrid jumped, a woman taller than her had materialized by her side with a polite smile and blue eyes she couldn’t read. Her long coat favored the curves of her body and Ingrid couldn’t find her voice for a second or two. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The woman’s smile didn’t reach her eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, it’s ok I…” Ingrid didn’t know how to follow and the eyes she couldn’t read changed, as if it was the stage behind the curtain getting ready for the next act and she was aware that the changes were there, but she couldn’t tell what those changes were.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The woman extended her a gloved hand and Ingrid felt drawn toward her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m Mercedes,” she simply said as she shook her hand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid nodded.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh, Goddess.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh, fucking Goddess.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ingrid,” she muttered, her eyes betraying her and going back to the painting they were standing by. Mercedes caught it and looked at the painting. She didn’t let go of her hand, instead fixed her blue eyes in hers and her smile changed once more.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It still didn’t reach her eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So, you’re the drummer.” Yes. Yes, she was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid nodded again, more self-conscious than she’d like to be. Mercedes giggled and let her go, “a pleasure to meet you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I… I hope you liked the show,” she said sheepishly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think you can see that I did,” Mercedes took the painting from the wall and looked at it before looking back at Ingrid.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her eyes were intense.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid shivered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I guess I’ll have to change the name of it, right?” Mercedes joked, offering her the painting. Ingrid took the frame and blinked before realizing what was happening.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wait, you’re giving this to me?” That couldn’t be, right? She had to pay for it after all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why yes,” Mercedes winked and Ingrid was completely at a loss of words, "it is inspired in you, after all.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Uh…” She had to say something, anything. A simple thank you would do, a simple nod.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can’t take it with me…” Maybe not that. Mercedes looked taken aback for a second, before tilting her head. Her bangs brushed her forehead as she did so and Ingrid looked at them, “I mean! I love it! I just… I’m riding my bike and can't take it home now…” She admitted, taking her helmet to show what she meant.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I see… you can come for it before closing,” Mercedes took the painting and looked at it once more, “I’ll be waiting.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh shit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh no shit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Was that what Ingrid thought it was?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What was going on?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sure, I’m out at eight or nine and I can leave the bike at my place!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good.”</span>
</p><hr/>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes never took her motorcycle to a date.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She didn’t want to explain anything about it or its previous owner.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She didn’t want to remember, but forget.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wanted to let go of everything that reminded her of him, of herself, of life as it once was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid’s smile was lopsided and through her lips the white air that escaped and condensed in the freezing winter was tinted with unnatural colors. Her smile so warm in contrast to the colors and air that framed her in lights Mercedes didn’t want to feel or comprehend, just understand and tell apart. Just grasp them at a level where they were useful but harmless.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Where their colors couldn't bring back the pain she hadn't known how to express other than in black and white.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The colors that would take her out of her numbing she had grown used to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She followed those green eyes through the night and never asked herself why she felt mesmerized at them. Instead, she smiled when she had to and nodded alongside what Ingrid told her. She was polite, she was captivating.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was intrigued.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wanted to let go.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes guided Ingrid through the night, never allowing her date to ask of her anything that could make her face what she wanted to forget.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid kept the painting Mercedes had prepared in her backpack and touched it every now and then, mesmerized.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was easy to give it away, she didn’t have an emotional connection to the art she created, not that strong at least.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not that strong anymore, at least.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And when midnight came and even Fhirdiad started to slow down, Ingrid’s cheeks were pink and the colors around her seemed touched by her green light Mercedes couldn’t explain but could see and wanted to understand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Understand and let go.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This was fun!” Ingrid laughed as they exited the arcade, her hands in the pockets of her jacket and her smile dazzling, “thank you for the night.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes looked at her, at the air that escaped from her nostrils, her disheveled blond hair, the bright smile and her eyelashes with snowflakes slowly melting. Ingrid’s smile turned into a grin instead and she tilted her head, her green eyes so vibrant, so colorful.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The lights in the city dyed Mercedes’s vision of red, purple, blue and green.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes’s gloved hand moved from the pocket of her coat to Ingrid’s cheek, wordlessly she caressed her cheekbone with her thumb, her blue eyes on her green ones. Ingrid’s eyes changed once more, emotions crossing them as lighting, leaving behind but the imprint of thoughts Mercedes couldn’t hear. Ingrid leaned into her touch, her breathing hitched when Mercedes’s thumb left her cheek and pressed her lips instead, barely parting them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What was she doing?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wanted to let go.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Let go of what?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She just wanted to let go.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes brought Ingrid gently toward her, Ingrid followed obediently and when Mercedes kissed her, she felt the trembling in her lips and the cold of her eyelashes so close to her skin. It was barely a touch, her lips brushing where her thumb had been seconds ago. Mercedes nested Ingrid’s face now with both of her hands and kissed her again, examining the feeling, dissecting the sensation of her warmth, of the colors she seemed to irradiate.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The bright light in Ingrid that was so much brighter than the lights in Fhirdiad. Lights that always tainted her vision when she wanted to see clearly, when she wished for reality to be sharper and defined and absolutely, instead of that endless soft voice in her head that coaxed her into putting in paper what her eyes saw around her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What Mercedes saw and she didn't believe to be true.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wanted to let go.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She couldn’t let go.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes kissed her again and her eyebrows knitted together. Ingrid was warm, and her hands found their way to her coat and her shoulders, they were strong and made her shiver when Ingrid’s fingers dug into her skin through the fabric.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid was made out of colors, green and white and blue, an ocean that seemed ethereal and eternal at the same time. How could all of them exist in one person? How all of them could reach her through space and time? Through the short yet enticing moments they had shared and pulled each other together like an accident they couldn't escape from?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wanted to let go.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How could she let go?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How much could she take before she needed to give in return?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid put some distance between them, her eyes fixed now in her lips and her shoulders, her fingers playing with the flaps of her coat, “uh… my place is nearby…” she whispered, so low Mercedes read the words from her lips rather than heard them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That was wrong.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She shouldn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She couldn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How could she expose herself like that? Mercedes was too hurt, too broken to try again, she just wanted to let go, she wanted to understand and move on.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wanted the world to be back to normal colors instead of that green that seemed to extinguish the blacks and greys and to replace the lights of Fhirdiad.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Guide me,” she heard herself reply, Ingrid bit her lower lip and found her hand to tug her away from the streets and into a building of small apartments.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She couldn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Couldn’t she?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She could.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was doing it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No, no, no, no, no, no, she shouldn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes was barely keeping her head over the water and she was getting an extra weight to her chains. Mercedes couldn’t do it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was too wounded, too scarred, too afraid.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Ingrid closed the door behind them Mercedes took her face and kissed her again, this time looking fiercely for the rush, the feeling Ingrid ignited in her and Mercedes wanted to tame and call at her will.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The thundering feeling that made her heart hammer in her chest and her eyes see colors she hadn’t seen before.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Why was she doing it?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This was wrong, she knew better.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She knew better.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She had to let go.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She couldn’t let go.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid answered her call, she moaned into her mouth and let Mercedes bite her lower lip, parting her mouth for her to explore and claim as her own. There must be answers there, answers as to why she could pick the right color for her and trace her silhouette so easily after seeing her once. Answers as to why just a brief sight of her had changed the colors of her world that lived comfortably in cold white and black and now was plagued by a green that would haunt her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid’s backpack fell with a loud thud to the floor and she was free now of the only weight that kept her from taking that last step.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes's fingers traced the line of her jaw, found the curve of her neck and her thumb brushed the muscles there that twitched at her touch. Ingrid sighed into the kiss and Mercedes let herself go but not in the way she wanted to. Mercedes felt how Ingrid pushed her forward, through the dim light of a room she didn’t know and didn’t care to know, never stopping kissing her, biting her, touching her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Taking from her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her calves hit the soft edge of a bed and Mercedes used her grip in Ingrid’s shoulders to shift their position, pushing her to the mattress and securing her under her weight. Mercedes sat astride on top of Ingrid, feeling her warmth and her abdomen rise and fall as she panted, looking at her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That green Mercedes couldn’t understand fixed on her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She kept her hands in her shoulders, examining the somewhat sharp features of Ingrid’s face, before kissing her again, her bangs brushing her forehead when she tilted forward, her breasts pressing against Ingrid’s chest. Her hands trailed to Ingrid’s and she felt there the hammering of her heart, the blood that ran in her veins and reacted to her touch, to her kisses, to her tongue following the line of her neck and even below.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>To her lips kissing through the fabric the same place where Mercedes had a mole and she could only imagine what it was hidden below the green shirt Ingrid was trying to take off with clumsy fingers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Mercedes’s fingers were the ones to unbutton the shirt, her blue eyes keeping Ingrid bewitched and <span class="kgnlhe FwR7Pc">immobile</span>, her breathing hitching, her chest rising and falling as Mercedes set her skin free from the clothes that kept her hidden from the world.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was no mole in Ingrid’s chest, her breasts trembling and shivering when she brushed them with her thumbs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes bit her lower lip.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What was it? Why had she let go?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What was she doing?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She tilted forward again and kissed Ingrid, her own wildfire spiking when she heard her moan weakly. Ingrid tried to grab Mercedes’s sweater to take it off, instead, Mercedes found the zip of her jeans and played with it for a second.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid opened her eyes and looked at her through the kiss, Mercedes cocked an eyebrow in a silent question.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid unzipped it for her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes closed her eyes and yet she could see the green still.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid was a symphony and an ocean, she was giving lights and notes, she was open and receptive for Mercedes to take as she pleased. Mercedes kissed her neck once more, her chest, her breasts, the line of her abs and the side of her stomach, burning in her mind the feeling, the hitching of Ingrid’s breathing when she kissed sensible skin, her hissing when she bit softly, her voice when she found the line of her pants and slid her thumb to feel the skin of her hip.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can I...?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And even if Mercedes kept on most of her clothes, she took from Ingrid trying to find in her the light that had interrupted her days and had transpired to her paintings and her idle thoughts.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes tried to find it in the curve of Ingrid’s hipbone, in the trembling of her lower belly when she bit her ear, in the burning kiss when she trailed with light fingertips the wetness of her underwear, in how Ingrid spread open for her, remaining still and holding her breath as Mercedes looked for the light inside her. As her middle and heart finger found warmth, velvet and softness she never stopped enjoying.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes took from Ingrid when she kissed her and rocked her to find in the tides of her pleasures the colors she hadn’t been able to grasp for so long.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wanted to understand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wanted to understand and let go.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes took but didn’t give in return.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When her thumb brushed Ingrid’s clit and found a steady rhythm that grew and grew, Ingrid held onto her and hid her face in the crook of her neck as she let go.  As her climax found release and her fingers dug into Mercedes’s shoulders when she cried her name.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes held her, listening to every sound and not finding in there the answer she was looking for. Not finding the answer to the color that had been so easy to see and so hard to understand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>To the light she wanted to understand and just let go of.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The light that had interrupted her world of white and black and greys.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her world where the ones that had departed lived still only in her eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The world she had to explain to no one.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid kissed her and, this time, Mercedes smiled and brushed her hair behind her ears, murmuring reassuring words as she held her close and the last of her climax faded away into the cold night of winter, in the dim light Ingrid seemed to create and Mercedes couldn’t understand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Ingrid woke up the next day, Mercedes was gone.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Ingrid</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ingrid chuckled, "I've never been the smartest person in the room." She scratched her neck and looked at Mercedes's hands, "wait…. Is that a helmet?"</p>
<p>Mercedes smiled.</p>
<p>It was.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>What can one say or do when death dresses as a young one?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What can one feel when fields are harvested and reaped before they’ve blossomed?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What is there to live for when what we love is to never be found again?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes looked through the window of her studio and the sharp blade of grief turned itself in her chest once more. The sky, impassible, never returned back but a reflection of her own thoughts.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was aware of the green in her canvas, she was aware of the bold strokes that composed the picture she was crafting.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes was aware that she regretted leaving without a word.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Yet, she shunned away from the thought.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The city, day and night, had woken up to colors she thought she wouldn’t see again. How could she? How could she after everything that had happened? After everything she had gone through?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How could the world give her colors once more when it had taken away from her the one she had loved the most without the possibility to say goodbye?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How when reality had decimated her family, had left her alone in a world unkind to the likes of her, had meticulously, yet pitilessly, taken from her until there wasn’t anything else she feared losing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Until there was nothing left she feared losing for the colors had absconded from her eyes and joy from her smile and warmth from her skin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Only a wild green seemed to flourish in a landscape that shouldn’t harbor it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes set the brush aside and looked at the canvas she had been painting. It was Ingrid again. It was Ingrid and the green in her eyes, the strong line of her shoulders, a lopsided smile she had spotted the night they had been together in the city.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid’s mouth that she had kissed looking for something that wasn’t to be found there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes took the canvas and set it aside as well, incomplete, watching her every step.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It wasn’t like her to leave without a goodbye. Had it been her fault, though? It had been the way the world had decided to treat her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Had it been the world or her?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The city and the sky around vibrated with colors she couldn’t see. The grey and the white merged in an even flow she didn’t know how to escape from.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How to let go of.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something moved in her chest and she knew it was pain that was awakened once more, that it was the hollow cry she had numbed coming back to scream at her ears and bite at her side.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The treacherous jab of a mourning she had never gone through and wished to leave behind.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How could she, however? How could she when she was alone, by herself?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When she was alone with her thoughts and her memories and the haunting words she wished she had said and never spoke?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her phone lit up and she looked at the screen, at the messages she hadn’t answered, the calls she hadn’t picked up. Annie never failed to contact her, even for the smallest of things she had a word of kindness, a quick smile, and a plan for Mercedes if she wanted for her to be there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes bit her lower lip and blocked the device.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The green had breached her world of greys, the numbing of her mind and the steady beating of her heart. It had awakened her inner grief and it had put in motion what she had never wanted to face again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wasn’t ready.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She would never be ready.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes was tired.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The phone lit up again and she turned it upside down, so the screen was against the table.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was tired.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes looked around in her studio, the walls covered in canvases she had finished and needed to be shipped, pieces that needed to be finished, empty canvases that waited to be picked up and painted on. It was filled with what had brought her joy once and she couldn’t let go.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She didn’t want to be there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She didn’t know where she wanted to be.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes left her phone behind and picked her keys and her helmet heading outside.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The world was grey and white and black.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And green.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The green that had breached her world and had opened a way for grief to remember her that, despite everything, she was alive.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Why are you so worked up for a one-night thing?”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sylvain was right and the realization was such a bitter hit Ingrid clenched her teeth and pedaled even harder. She crossed a yellow light that was too close to be a red one and didn't pay attention to the screams from the cars she dodged.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Why did she care about it? It had been fun, it had been just a night.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She had had some of those before.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid took a sharp right and the tires of her bike screeched against the damp pavement of the street, somehow she managed to keep pedaling and balanced as cycler and bicycle gained speed. The lights in the middle of the day weren't bright enough to warn her of anything else but her running thoughts.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It wasn’t as if she hadn’t enjoyed it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The painting was still on her wall, the only decoration in the bare studio apartment she called home and she spent so little time in. She would see it every time she crumbled on her bed and looked at the wall, staring into a void that was less empty and yet still lonely.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The window of her apartment was foggy and the city outside blurry.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid would turn around her bed, trying to find solace in the dreamless slumber that still blessed her nights.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Another yellow light that was almost a red when she crossed it. The green and blue of her jacket flapped as she kept pedaling, her speed over the limit for cars in the city, zigzagging through them with the ease of those who had done it for years.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She couldn’t be late for work.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Yet she wasn’t taking the fastest way.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The art gallery she had been avoiding was right in the way she used to take to work before.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was blowing it out of proportion, she knew. Ingrid knew. Of course, she was blowing it out of proportion. Her tires screeched again and the rear wheel turned in the air for a couple of seconds as she skidded to a stop.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The traffic in front of her was expected for a busy Wednesday morning.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid bit her bottom lip as she waited for the street lights to change once more.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was being ridiculous, wasn’t she?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If she could get a grip of herself… if she could get a grip of herself what?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She could continue as she had before? In an apartment with bare walls and no ending days of work, rehearsal, shows, visits to an art gallery where the mystery of an artist was to be looked at in her art instead of her blue eyes Ingrid couldn’t stop thinking about?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her fingers clenched the brake of her bike just a bit tighter. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The lights changed and she stood in her pedals as she picked up speed again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes had been part of her life through her art long before Ingrid got to know her. She realized she was disappointed in the image she had made herself of Mercedes. What had she been expecting? Mercedes didn’t owe her anything, did she?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No, not at all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe, just maybe, she’d see her again in one of their shows.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Yes, right, Ingrid smiled to herself with no joy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sure.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was in the eye of a storm she couldn’t phantom.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <span>There was a wall in her thoughts.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was something wrong with her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was broken and the sharp pieces that remained of her would hurt those who’d come close, wouldn’t they?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a wall in her thoughts and for months it had been there, safe and secure, it had kept her away from the world. It had kept everybody away from her and her pain, her grief, the mourning she refused to go through.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes watched the cars come and go, sitting on the bike, motionless, numb to the cold that made the pedestrians rush their way or get into stores and coffee shops. Her hands hanged and her head tilted to her right, her body shut to the external stimuli, her mind pondering over the things she had busied herself away from.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She had never welcomed him back home. She had let the time go by, sure that there was a tomorrow to look forward to. Sure that the goddess was merciful and the skies benevolent despite the storms brewing up in the sky above. Mercedes had been sure that there was a future that would be kind to them if they waited long enough for the right moment to arise.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was no goddess in the sky to answer her prayers, there was no divine intervention to take her back to a time where the colors didn’t hurt, where she found joy in her memories, where she thought she was lucky for the life she was living.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes bit her lower lip and clenched her fists.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The mourning she didn’t want to go through and yet hadn’t even faced was there, reminding her that feelings were to be felt and pain to be lived and days to be counted by one.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She put the helmet on and started the bike once more, the grey in her vision turning slowly to colors devoid of warmth, her wall breached by the green she had seen through the smoke of an amateur show and the lights of somebody who wasn’t an expert but tried their best.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She joined traffic and the cold wind tried to cut through her jacket like blades she couldn’t feel for she was numb to them. The green that had reminded her she had a soul that wished to love and yet it was too broken to attempt it wholeheartedly once more. Mercedes accelerated and kept a lane to herself, driving carefully through the light traffic of the afternoon.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She should’ve stayed for breakfast, maybe get Ingrid a coffee, maybe ask for her number. She should’ve given herself the option, the choice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes should’ve stayed for even if she didn’t find what she was looking for when she kissed Ingrid, but maybe what she looked for wasn’t what she needed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But she was broken, wasn’t she not?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She shouldn’t want to latch onto, but let go.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Let go.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Let go of the pain, the possibility of being hurt once more, let go of the feelings that made her cry that summer day when they told her Emile was gone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Let go of the colors that reminded her of a life that didn’t exist anymore, let go of the memories she thought would be too much to bear in a future that had been deprived of his presence. Let go of the love she still felt for the one she loved and never could quite welcome in her life as she wished.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes stopped at a red light, the engine purring and the air freezing, her visor was blurry and she wiped it without thinking with a gloved hand. Let go of everything she held dear, going through motions every day with no real intention behind them, with nothing else in mind but the feeling she was too broken and too dangerous to be around.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The cars in front of her were cut by the blue and green of Ingrid’s jacket as she crossed the intersection as lighting, her bicycle faster than the cars around her as she moved through lanes and her backpack, covered in neon orange, disappeared into the afternoon traffic, away from her and into a city that regained its colors painfully slow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes tilted forward in the bike to see her go, she was a flag of colors, not only green but now orange and blue and brown, she was a wind of air Mercedes didn’t expect and she had let go of.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She had let go of her, hadn’t she?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hadn’t she?</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <span>The weather was impossible to navigate, hail and thunder and wind blowing to her face when she looked outside. A strong punch she shuddered at before shaking her head and closing the door with a sigh.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Even though the metallic door she could hear the wind howling and the hail clattering. Ingrid groaned and took a couple of steps back. Behind her, the boys packed their instruments still arguing if they should wait for the storm to ease or just leave them there. Felix seemed especially unimpressed when Sylvain offered to accommodate them all in his car.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid understood, it was a very small car usually crammed with things she didn’t care to understand what they were. Yet, her bike wasn’t going to take her through that storm in one piece even if she was to leave the drum set there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It wasn’t as if she was taking it to her tiny apartment anyway, she could barely fit a bed, a table that could be used as a desk and the painting on her wall that she looked at when her eyes wanted to go back to a void that had no face but incommensurable depth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Another strong wind gust hit the door behind them and her friends looked at each other, realizing they were running out of options.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Look, I can get a van, but it will take me an hour or so…” Dimitri crossed his arms and tilted his head, looking at the guitar, bass and keyboard that were properly packed, waiting for the next rehearsal, show, or simply for somebody to pick them up and let the time run by at the sound of their music.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Bar will be open for a couple of hours more, boss! I think we can manage,” Sylvain grabbed Ingrid and Felix by their necks and beamed, completely unfazed by the danger he had just woken in the most feral members of the band. Dimitri looked at him and smiled, shaking his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Very well, wait for me, stay out of trouble,” and he pulled up his phone to start typing and calling, venturing to the outside world with ease. Ingrid watched him go and clenched her teeth. Dimitri wasn’t a regular person, he was out of that world even if he himself didn’t realize it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Felix wrestled out of Sylvain’s hold and sat down next to his bass, a boring look on his face. Ingrid saw how Sylvain’s expression changed and she squeezed his shoulder before breaking free as well and going through the door in the opposite wall, toward the main hall of the bar. She wasn’t driving and she wasn’t working the next day, she could as well have a beer and try to leave her mind blank for an hour. Fatigue had made its way to her very bones and a sigh worked its way through her lips.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It had been a good show, but not a spectacular one, nothing remarkable, but it paid and it was a step forward to their goal.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Their goal.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid smiled to herself as she sat by the bar and signed the barman to get a beer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Their goal.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She took a sip from the bottle and closed her eyes, finding solace in the bitter yet refreshing drink.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just water for me, thank you.” Ingrid snapped her eyes open and turned, her mouth twisted in a surprised expression. Mercedes smiled at her and she was as beautiful as she remembered her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Well, fuck.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid took another sip and bit her lower lip as Mercedes sat next to her, waiting for her drink.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I can sit somewhere else..." Her voice was soft and yet filled Ingrid's ears despite the music, the people talking around and the storm outside.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No, no, it's ok." What was she supposed to say? She had to be a grown-up and roll with the punches life threw her way.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She had to be a grown-up and swallow her pride and silence the voice that, despite everything, was happy that Mercedes was there for she wanted to kiss her again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid longed for her lips one more time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid longed for the warmth she could find in her even if it was so ethereal and dangerous that it could leave her again hollow once more.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Can I buy you this drink?" Mercedes looked at her, her blue eyes that seemed covered in mystery and enigmas, riddles Ingrid never wanted to find the answer to if it meant stop looking at them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Wait, what did she just think?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid shook her head, displeased at her running thoughts.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I have a free tab since I played here tonight."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes smiled. It was a dangerous, yet inviting smile. A chill ran through her spine and Ingrid cleared her throat, aware of how she had tilted forward to be closer to Mercedes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Maybe I can invite you to the coffee I owe you then on a different occasion?" Sweet words that hide a sharp edge that could hurt her and yet, it called to her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It promised things Ingrid wanted.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>'You don't owe me a single thing, if anything I owe you for the painting..." Her voice was still leveled, somehow. She took another sip of her bottle and tried to keep her mind grounded to the cold feeling of the liquid in her belly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"That was a gift." Yes, it had been a gift.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her eyes on her veiled by the darkness of her room at night, her kisses in her neck, a soft bite in her shoulder, her voice prisoner of moans. They had been gifts as well.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Regardless," the word came by itself, filling the space between them and opening bridges she had thought had been burned. She sighed and looked ahead, at the wall of the bar covered in bottles that shone dimly in the yellow light so different from the colors of the show</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I'm sorry, Ingrid." Ingrid’s head snapped back again toward Mercedes, her eyebrows up and the question so painfully written in her face she didn’t need to say it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She did, nonetheless.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Why?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I should've stayed, I realized too late I wanted to..."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The music kept playing, the people kept talking, the world spinning and rotating and moving in an endless flow that knew nothing of beginning or end.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid, however, stayed there, in her own reality, looking at Mercedes, speechless.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I wanted to</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid had wanted her to stay.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid was so used to forgetting what she wanted in favor of what she needed that the words hit her hard, a gut punch that took away from her the air and the words.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her fingers clenched the bottle and she realized it was almost empty. She could ask for another one, she could ask for Mercedes to excuse her and go back to the room where Felix and Sylvain were doing whatever they did alone. She could shrug and accept the invitation.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wanted to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wanted more.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I guess I can accept that coffee, right? And maybe give you my number..." Ingrid let the bottle on the bar and turned to face Mercedes for the first time since she sat down. “I guess I can do that, not today though.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes smiled, and there was something different, something slightly different yet very telling in that smile. Ingrid’s stomach churned once more and she was sure what it was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She caught both the sigh and the groan before they were born.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can do that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okey…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They looked at each other, the music playing, the people talking, the storm ramping up.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid smiled, a shy smile, and she thought in the painting on her wall, the true and yet delicate and bold traces that Mercedes had made after barely seeing her through a cloud of fake smoke, a crowd of people, and the neon lights of a spectacular show.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You want to get to know me?" Mercedes asked, tilting close, her smile changing and always something new there to explore and look at. Ingrid found herself lost to her mouth once more.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Well... yes?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"That's a terrible idea."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ingrid chuckled, "I've never been the smartest person in the room." She scratched her neck and looked at Mercedes's hands, "wait…. Is that a helmet?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mercedes smiled.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Can somebody take the wheel? Seriously, guys, somebody, please...</p>
<p>Also, if you haven't, PLEASE go and check Jess's art in her  <a href="https://twitter.com/chuminder">Twitter</a> account! She just created the most amazing image for our beloved biker Mercie!</p>
<p> </p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Emile</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>When Ingrid smiled, her eyes were a lighter green.</p>
<p>When she looked up to the winter sky her eyes were mixed with the silver of the clouds that seemed to rule the season.</p>
<p>When she frowned, her eyes seemed to sparkle, a fire in them Mercedes laughed at but she secretly wished to paint, to portray in bold strokes.</p>
<p>When Ingrid looked at her, sometimes, her eyes were darker, consumed by fondness and lust Mercedes didn’t deserve but took nonetheless.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Ingrid smiled, her eyes were a lighter green.</p>
<p>When she looked up to the winter sky her eyes were mixed with the silver of the clouds that seemed to rule the season.</p>
<p>When she frowned, her eyes seemed to sparkle, a fire in them Mercedes laughed at but she secretly wished to paint, to portray in bold strokes.</p>
<p>When Ingrid looked at her, sometimes, her eyes were darker, consumed by fondness and lust Mercedes didn’t deserve but took nonetheless.</p>
<p>Day and night, as weeks passed, she peeled a new layer in the intrigued web of emotions and colors Ingrid occupied in her mind. Day and night she let herself go, she let go of her fears, she let go of the walls that had been breached and let the colors in once more. As she did, she found new things she could’ve never discovered if she had let go of Ingrid.</p>
<p>When Ingrid laughed, the earth laughed with her, the river’s tides breathed alongside her sighs and the clouds bowed to her defying smirks, to her muscles strong and yet gentle, her voice, sure despite her words always hesitant.</p>
<p>Mercedes peeled layer after layer, and she didn’t find there what she thought she was going to find, for Ingrid was so much more she could’ve imagined at the beginning. There were not only colors but music and feelings in every action Ingrid did, in every breach she opened in her wall.</p>
<p>It was in the pout when she had finished her coffee and muffin a bit too fast and was still hungry.</p>
<p>It was in the sleepy goodbye she gave her when Mercedes left after spending a night in Ingrid’s bed after a long day they had shared.</p>
<p>It was in the way she used to lose herself to her thoughts, her green eyes completely taken by the images in her mind.</p>
<p>It was in her open smile when Ingrid assured her that she was a wreck.</p>
<p>Mercedes had found colors in her, she had found words, she had found music.</p>
<p>Mercedes had found life when she had been so numb to it before.</p>
<p>And as it opened its way through to her life, it also opened a path to the things Mercedes had tried to avoid and she was facing once more. A dance she had danced poorly and now she was again dancing alongside the one that would hurt her at the end.</p>
<p>The one that had hurt her already.</p>
<p><em> What is it? </em> Ingrid had asked her that once. Ingrid had asked her because she had seen the truth in Mercedes’s eyes and had never feared to use strong words despite her hesitance from time to time when speaking them.</p>
<p><em> What is it? </em> She had asked when her mind was trapped in the past and she was a wreck, she knew it. Mercedes knew she was a wreck but she wanted to reach out, she wanted to understand and let in the colors that had breached her walls and had forced her to live once more.</p>
<p>At night, when the moon shone in the sky like a silver pendant, Mercedes would drown in the waves of her pain as she started to feel once more.</p>
<p>She would drown but Ingrid was there. Ingrid was there in the colors, in the music, in the tides of the river and in the breathing of the earth and as Emile was as well, she would feel it in her bones.</p>
<p>At night, when the moon was covered in clouds, she would lay down and would feel the weight of the world on her shoulders and the music and the colors would flood her mind. The pain, the grief, the mourning would drown in them, would come and go, would leave her time to breathe and then time to cry.</p>
<p>She wasn’t numb anymore.</p>
<p>She wasn’t numb anymore.</p>
<p>She was a wreck.</p>
<p>Ingrid was a wreck.</p>
<p>Ingrid was in her life nevertheless.</p>
<p>And they would go out together, a night in the arcade, a Saturday in Mercedes’s motorbike, lunch together when Mercedes paid for three, hiding her smile with her hand as Ingrid devoured everything in front of her.</p>
<p>Ingrid was in her life.</p>
<p>And she was green in her canvas, she was blue, she was yellow, she was the colors in her pallet and the strokes of her brush even when Mercedes was working on something somebody was asked of her. Ingrid was the never-ending, never-failing rhythm of her drums, the lighting of her bike in a city built for cars instead of bicycles, the lopsided smile she wore to defy the world and the frown that embellished her features every time something didn’t sit right with her.</p>
<p>“What is it?” Ingrid asked, once more, looking at her with the same question in her eyes and the coffee cup still clenched in her hand.</p>
<p>Mercedes smiled.</p>
<p>“You’re gorgeous, did you know that?” And Ingrid’s blush was so strong that the red colored her world with the same intensity a wildfire would blaze through summer woods. Mercedes’s smile only grew, “so cute.”</p>
<p>“Mercedes!” Ingrid groaned, her blush now covering the tip of her ears and disappearing through the cleavage of her shirt. Mercedes knew the skin under it, she knew how her body changed and how Ingrid would call her name when she kissed the spot right over her heart.</p>
<p>“Yes?” As if she didn’t know what Ingrid was about to say.</p>
<p>“You’re insufferable.”</p>
<p>That she was.</p>
<p>“Thank you.”</p>
<p>And maybe Ingrid’s color would burn her, maybe Ingrid’s smile would disarm her for her own pain to come back and bite her side.</p>
<p>Maybe she didn’t deserve Ingrid’s love.</p>
<p>Maybe she didn’t deserve to mourn her brother’s death.</p>
<p>Mercedes clung to it still.</p>
<p>Had she been scared of letting her in? So much that she had shunned away from her the first time.</p>
<p>Now she was scared of a life in the unknown without her.</p>
<p>“Do you have to go so early?” She had asked and Ingrid looked at her and a new expression appeared on her face, an apologetic smile.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, I know you like sleeping in, but it’s out of my control.” Ingrid buttoned her shirt and offered her a hand, kissing her knuckles and then her shoulders lightly, before leaving to make some coffee and rush them both out of her home.</p>
<p>Emile had been in every corner, he had been in every intersection, the low roar of the motorcycle the words she hadn't said to him, the blank canvas the things she hadn't done for him.</p>
<p>He still lived in every detail, in every corner of her mind, but now colors had flooded it and music has changed it and her mind was an ocean, tides coming and going, days changing, up and down always changing, always giving her respite in between storms.</p>
<p>Her mind wasn’t an iceberg, it wasn’t the eternal gray wind that had frozen her, numbed her.</p>
<p>Emile was in every corner and she could now remember without drowning, she could speak without crying.</p>
<p>She could feel without destroying herself, without falling apart.</p>
<p>“What are you working on now?” Ingrid looked at her from Mercedes’s bed, the white sheets rested on her shoulders as she turned and Mercedes felt the warmth in her belly grow and spike.</p>
<p>If Mercedes could know that Ingrid would always be there when she needed... </p>
<p>The future was unknown, wasn’t it? She needed to stick to what she had at the moment. </p>
<p>Ingrid was a flower in her bed, ethereal and enlightened, shining with the sunlight of a rare sunny winter morning.</p>
<p>Mercedes sat in the bed with a cup of coffee she set delicately on the table by the bed before caressing her cheek, examining her eyes, her thumb running on her cheeks before resting in her lips.</p>
<p>Those kisses weren’t forbidden now, Ingrid had breached her walls and she had allowed Mercedes to take them freely.</p>
<p>Mercedes kissed Ingrid and in her mouth, she didn’t find what she was looking for, for now, she was taking without conditions and without looking for anything else but the warmth Ingrid had in her for Mercedes.</p>
<p>The colors, the music, the sighs, the breathing at night, the laughing in the day, the words in a sunset she would remember for days with no end.</p>
<p>“I’m not sure yet.”</p>
<p>And she was right, the canvas was white and it called to her and she didn’t know what she wanted to portray but she knew it called for her.</p>
<p>Ingrid was a flower, and she bloomed in her hands each time she kissed her over her heart, every time she bit her shoulders, every time she trembled when her hands found her thighs and her lips her ears.</p>
<p>Ingrid was a flower and she blossomed when she smiled, when she called for her when she was on the stage when she pedaled through a city that wasn’t built for bicycles and she tried nonetheless.</p>
<p>Ingrid was a flower, filled with colors and she shone on her own.</p>
<p>And her light was enough for Mercedes to feel warmth once more.</p>
<p>She was in every detail, in every color, in every sound.</p>
<p>Ingrid was in the brush strokes Mercedes took when she started to draft her new piece.</p>
<p>She was there with a coffee mug looking over her shoulder before she asked Mercedes who was the man she was painting.</p>
<p>Ingrid was there when she told her about her brother.</p>
<p>Ingrid was there when she let Mercedes cuddle in her embrace and closed her arms around her, hugging her through the tides of a pain that hurt but couldn’t drown her anymore.</p>
<p>Not anymore.</p>
<p>She was there when she used colors on the canvas.</p>
<p>Ingrid was there when she kissed her gently goodnight.</p>
<p>Ingrid was there, and there weren’t more walls, there weren’t anchors to a past that was afraid of what the future had.</p>
<p>Mercedes lived in a present that was vibrant with colors in a city covered in the last of a cruel, long winter that never seemed to pass.</p>
<p>Ingrid had come to be her home, and it wasn’t a place, an idea, it was a feeling.</p>
<p>It was the feeling she could harbor and the certainty that Ingrid loved her.</p>
<p>She loved her.</p>
<p>Mercedes took a final look at the canvas before signing the name of the piece.</p>
<p>“Emile”.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>It's a wrap! So, I wrote this because I am <i>:sparkles: depressed :sparkles:</i>, so I suppose I can do something else about it other than just feel sorry in a corner.</p>
<p>In any case, each chapter has a song assigned, as I listened to it in a loop while writing them, these are "Let go", "Take me down easy" and "Sunflower".</p>
<p>I hope you enjoyed this, kudos and comments are appreciated as always!</p>
<p>Be safe out there!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I just wanna let go... I have no idea what I'm doing.</p>
<p>My <a href="https://twitter.com/KuroKR_">twitter</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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